Oral Answers to Questions

Shaun Woodward: We should all be careful about jumping to conclusions about what Lord Saville's report will say. It is unfair and a mistake to describe this as an "obscene" inquiry, because at the time it was set up the then Prime Minister made it very clear that, since the original report on the events of 1972, there were new eyewitness accounts, new interpretations of ballistic material, new medical evidence and a substantial dossier gathered by the families—produced a year before the inquiry was set up. He also said that it was appropriate for public confidence to have a proper independent inquiry without any preconditions as to the outcome, so that the truth could be established and told. None of us should be afraid of establishing the truth, and we should be prepared to work with the truth, not run away from it.

Jim Devine: Is it not the case that the vast part of the legal bills dates from challenges prior to the setting up of the inquiry? Can the Secretary of State assure me that the families directly affected will be given the support that they need?

Shaun Woodward: My hon. Friend raises a number of very important points about legal costs, judicial reviews and funding for the families at the time of publication. It is important, in recognising the importance of establishing this inquiry for the case of public confidence, that when the report is published it should be published fairly and everybody who is mentioned in it should be given adequate time to prepare for what might be said. Delays are one of the major reasons why costs are incurred in such inquiries. Whether we are talking about Saville or any of the other reviews that have been established, every time a judicial review takes place, those who are on retainers, who are in office buildings or who are leasing and renting equipment continue to be paid while, unfortunately, no work can take place on the inquiry while a judicial review, which can last many months, is under way.

Shaun Woodward: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but I suggest that he talks to some of his colleagues on the shadow Front Bench. When the Bill that became the Inquiries Act 2005 was going through the House, the shadow Solicitor-General was sitting where the hon. Gentleman is sitting now. He expressed concerns about the Bill's original drafting, precisely because it
	"over-extended Ministers' powers to interfere in an inquiry at the expense of the inquiry's chairman, which would compromise an inquiry's independence, effectiveness and credibility."—[ Official Report, 6 April 2005; Vol. 432, c. 494.]

Shaun Woodward: Of course, many of these matters are now devolved matters but, that being said, we absolutely recognise the need to help all parts of the UK through the downturn. Through the work that the Prime Minister is leading, we of course intend to make sure that Northern Ireland has its fair share of anything that we are able to do. As Secretary of State, I stand ready to meet and work with Ministers in Northern Ireland to ensure that we do all that we can to mitigate the effects of the downturn.

Peter Hain: I congratulate the Secretary of State on the astute way in which he supported the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister in reaching this important agreement—a relief to me, as I promised to be the last direct rule Secretary of State. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the process will take time? It was never envisaged that there would be a big bang devolution of policing and justice, but that it would be phased. That will now occur speedily, and relatively soon there will be progress towards that objective.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are hon. Members in the Chamber who want to hear the Northern Ireland questions and answers. It is unfair that there should be so many conversations going on.

Shaun Woodward: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	On the question of the budget, let me say that last year my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made it possible for me to give the Police Service of Northern Ireland a budget that many other chief constables would envy. The hon. Gentleman will know that the crime figures for Northern Ireland—especially those for violent crime—are extremely low compared with other parts of the United Kingdom.
	On dissident activity, the threat posed to police officers in Northern Ireland is higher today than at any point in the past six years. The men and women of the PSNI do an exemplary job, and the Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde, has provided exemplary leadership for those men and women. We owe them a huge debt. I regret that now, in the last throes of this process, we will see a last throw from dissidents—a last attempt to undermine the work of the politicians in Northern Ireland. We stand absolutely resolute in our determination to ensure that those isolated criminals, who have no support in the community, do not succeed.

Laurence Robertson: May I give a warm welcome to the announcement made yesterday, which will enable policing and justice to be devolved in due course, and also enable the Executive to meet? Hopefully, when they can meet, they will be able concentrate on the economy, regardless of when policing and justice is devolved. More than two thirds of Northern Ireland's gross domestic product is generated by the public sector. What can the Government do to help the private sector increase its activities, so that the people of Northern Ireland can enjoy greater prosperity?

Shaun Woodward: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very generous comments about the historic agreement reached yesterday. On the economy, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is of course working closely with me to ensure that we provide all the help that we can for people in Northern Ireland during the downturn. In relation to the private sector, I simply point to one example: the work being conducted by the American Government to bring investment to Northern Ireland. I would like again to put on the record my thanks to the American Government, to President Bush and to the special envoy Paula Dobriansky, who has ensured that everything that can be done to bring private sector investment from the United States is done in Northern Ireland, and will continue.

David Cameron: May I start by thanking the Prime Minister for agreeing to the full, independent inquiry into baby P that I asked for here last week? This was never about politics; it was about getting to the truth, and I am grateful that we are to have that inquiry.
	Does the Prime Minister agree that bank reconstruction, which we all support, has not yet had the desired effect, in terms of ensuring that lower interest rates are passed on to businesses, and that credit is genuinely freed up?

David Cameron: I am grateful for what the Prime Minister says about the tragic case in Haringey and the need for proper accountability and responsibility, and there will be all-party support for that.
	On the issue of talking to the banks, let me give the Prime Minister two specific cases that we have been in touch about this morning. First, a manufacturer in Lancashire, employing 120 people, is now being charged £16,000 for a modest overdraft facility. Even more dramatically, a small business in Leicestershire wrote to us saying that it had never breached its banking covenants and never exceeded its overdraft limit, yet its overdraft facility had been withdrawn and cheques have bounced. Do not such cases show that what has been done so far, which we support, has not yet worked properly, and that we need to do more on the credit side to ensure that such small businesses are not strangled?

Gordon Brown: The reason why I mentioned what we have already done was to remind the House of the action that has been taken, which the Opposition unfortunately opposed. The issue now is providing real help—as I said early on—for small businesses and for families, and, to make that real help possible, there will have to be some fiscal expansion. If the Leader of the Opposition is now telling me that he will support that fiscal expansion to make it possible, that is a change from yesterday, but a welcome change, indeed. We will take all the measures that are necessary to help small businesses get the loan capital that they need, but the Opposition are going to have to be consistent: if they are asking for fiscal action now, that is the opposite of what they were doing yesterday.

Alistair Burt: Can we have an answer from the Prime Minister to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne)? If it were true that the economy is better placed than any other to come out of the recession, what is the Prime Minister's explanation of why our currency has fallen so far, and so fast?

Gordon Brown: I applaud the action that my hon. Friend has taken, and I also applaud what Cancer Research UK has done. We will publish our response to the consultation with which it was involved very soon, and we will launch a new national tobacco control strategy in 2009. Tobacco use in this country has fallen from 28 to 22 per cent., and for children, it has fallen from 13 to 6 per cent., but that is not good enough. The age of sale for tobacco products was raised from 16 to 18, and stronger sanctions will be made against retailers who persistently sell cigarettes and tobacco to children.

Brian Iddon: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for no-fault compensation for personal injury in road traffic accidents where liability cannot be established.
	As the House knows, British civil law says that in cases where an accident has taken place, negligence and liability must be established before compensation can be paid out. In the vast majority of cases, negligence and liability are established through insurance firms and compensation is awarded to the injured party. Where liability and negligence are contested, the case may go to court and the decision on the levels of compensation will be made by a judge.
	Every year, a small number of people are injured in road traffic accidents where liability cannot be established and a defence of automatism, or involuntary action, is used by the defendant. The victim is left injured, with no compensation to ameliorate the situation. It is because of such a case in my constituency that I have been moved to act on this issue and to seek to introduce this Bill.
	In 2004, my constituent, Mr. Rajendra Vanker, a research chemist, was seriously injured when he was hit by another car while helping his father to load boxes into his car at the roadside. The driver of the other car had suffered a heart attack prior to the car's impact on my constituent. Tragically, that driver died later in hospital. My constituent was left unable to walk unaided and in considerable pain. He was unable to return to work, so his career in the chemical industry was ruined. Four years on, he has not received any compensation for the injuries he suffered and he is still receiving medical attention, despite the fact that he played no part in the accident and is an innocent party.
	The deceased's insurers, Halifax Insurance, have refused to pay out any compensation, citing the defence of automatism because the deceased was unconscious at the time of impact and not considered liable for his actions. Halifax Insurance says that, because the deceased cannot be said to be negligent as he was not suffering from cardiovascular disease previously and could not have known that he would suffer a heart attack, it is not liable for any compensation claim for injuries sustained by my constituent, Mr. Vanker.
	Where the defence of automatism is being cited by an insurer to avoid paying compensation, the case must ultimately be tested in the courts. Naturally, my constituent sought legal advice and received various experts' opinions that, even if his case came to court, he was extremely unlikely to succeed. That left my constituent in a difficult position. He is not a wealthy man, particularly since he has not been able to work during the last four years, and he felt unable to take the risk of mounting a court case that he was advised he was unlikely to win.
	The Association of British Insurers advises me that cases like this, where liability cannot be established, happen extremely rarely and that insurance companies are often prepared to look sympathetically at such cases and make ex-gratia payments to the injured party. That is not an admission of liability, but it does at least mean that the injured party receives some compensation. However, in my constituent's case, the deceased's insurers, Halifax Insurance, have refused to do this. Despite the small numbers of people affected by this legal situation, I feel that it is unfair that anyone injured in an accident where they are not at fault must either pursue such cases to court at their own risk or simply accept that they will not receive any compensation for what is sometimes a life-changing injury.
	This issue has been raised periodically in the House. Most recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) made two attempts to change the law with his Motor Accident Injury Compensation Bill, introduced in both 1998 and 1999. That Bill was a little wider than mine, in that it sought to change the way in which compensation entitlement was determined to ensure that payment was made more swiftly, and that everyone injured in an accident, regardless of liability, would be compensated. Despite the excellent intentions of my hon. Friend's Bill, it made no progress in the House.
	In the 1970s, attempts were made to change the law surrounding compensation to ensure that when people had been injured and liability could not be established, they could receive some compensation through their insurance companies. Campaigning on the issue culminated in the formation of the Pearson commission, which reported in 1978 and made some fairly radical proposals. It recommended that the traditional tort law applicable in such cases should be replaced by non-fault insurance and strict liability. Disappointingly, neither the Government of the day nor successive Governments since have been receptive to the commission's recommendations, which have fallen by the wayside. In 1991 the issue of compensation and the workability of a no-fault compensation scheme returned to the agenda when it was examined by the Lord Chancellor's Department, but the Department's report concluded that the current system should remain in place.
	The principle of no-fault compensation exists all over the world. Perhaps the most well-known scheme is that of New Zealand's Accident Compensation Corporation, which ensures that anyone injured in an accident—even if he or she was responsible—receives compensation. In return for the scheme, New Zealanders are not allowed to sue for personal injury other than in exceptional circumstances. Similar schemes operate in certain states in America and Australia and, in various different forms, in European countries such as Sweden. The introduction of such a scheme here would be a radical departure from our current civil law, and would have wide-ranging implications. I believe that there would be considerable merit in the Government's re-examining the issue of no-fault compensation and investigating the workability of introducing a scheme like New Zealand's in this country.
	I am determined that other people should be protected from experiencing the unfairness of the position in which my constituent finds himself, and my Bill would help to do that. When a driver who causes an accident through negligence has no insurance, or leaves the scene and is untraceable, the Motor Insurers Bureau steps in and provides compensation for the injured party. The MIB is funded by a levy on all insurance underwriters. I believe that a small scheme, possibly administered through the MIB, providing for compensation for injured parties when the defence of automatism is used could be a solution to this problem. The cost of such a fund would be unlikely to impose a great burden on our insurance industry, and my Bill would ensure that the guidelines for administering the fund were strictly defined in order to ensure that insurance companies did not try to get out of their responsibilities in regard to compensation.
	I believe that the establishment of a fund to allow compensation to be made available to the very small number of people who are affected by the present situation would go some way towards ameliorating the unfair position in which a tiny minority of people, such as my constituent Mr Rajendra Vanker, find themselves every year, and I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Dr. Brian Iddon, Dr. Desmond Turner, Dr. Ian Gibson, Mr. David Kidney, Mark Lazarowicz and Christopher Fraser.

Keith Vaz: It is not just a question of getting information removed; lack of information is also a problem. The hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the case of his party colleague, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who has been trying to get certain details removed. He is totally innocent of any crime, and he has written letters, but not, I think, received replies. Such lack of information is the main problem.

Damian Green: I suspect that the hon. Gentleman and I substantively disagree. Obviously, I believe that we need to take the terrorist threat seriously. I imagine that the amendment would mean, if we were talking about a sensible Secretary of State, that there could be exemptions in certain circumstances regarding specific agencies—obviously meaning the security services—that deal on a day-to-day basis with potential terrorist threats. I am happy to say that the amendment is designed to ensure that there would be absolutely no weakening of our defence, or the effectiveness of our defences, against terrorism. I cannot believe that that disturbs the hon. Gentleman, but if that is what he is worried about, so be it. We will have to part company.

Douglas Hogg: I am sorry to be sniping from the back, but as I understand it, the amendment would not give the House an opportunity to express a view on which Government agencies should be required to provide the information. It may well be that disclosure from some agencies is undesirable, but we should be in a position to identify whether an agency comes into that category.

David Davis: Is not the reason why the guidelines are so presumptive in favour of keeping such data that the Government mistakenly believe that they get a large advantage when it comes to solving crimes? In June, the Prime Minister made a speech in which he said that 114 murders had been made solvable and that murderers had been taken off the streets because of the breadth of the database. It would be better if we could have more information on that so that we could see the exact truth of the matter, because I believe that that was an over-estimation.

Vernon Coaker: It might be helpful to the hon. Gentleman if I tell him that the question posed by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) came up this morning when I was giving evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee. I undertook to look into the matter and to write to the Committee with the relevant information. I cannot give the House that information now, but it might be helpful for hon. Members to know that, given that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has given his apologies for having to leave early.

Damian Green: I am grateful to the Minister for giving us that assurance and I am sure that we would all be grateful if he could include others when sending out that letter. I am glad that he has been made aware of this issue.
	There are ways of improving the situation. Our amendment represents one, but I hope that the Minister will also take seriously the first annual report of the ethics group on the national DNA database—the NDNAD—which was set up by the Government. It makes a large number of recommendations on how to improve the situation, but I will concentrate on just three of them. One states:
	"For those members of the public who are believed to be innocent at the time of sampling and voluntarily donate their DNA to help the police with their enquiries, the presumption should shift to an expectation that these samples will be used only for the case under investigation, that the profile will not be loaded onto the NDNAD, and that the samples and all data derived from them will be destroyed when the case has ended."
	I hope that the Government will take that on board. A further recommendation states:
	"A clearer, simpler and less cumbersome process needs to be put in place to enable those who wish to appeal against the decision of a Chief Constable to retain their DNA profile on the NDNAD."
	I am sure that anyone who has gone through the guidelines will find that proposal reasonable. A third recommendation that I want to press upon Ministers is:
	"Consideration should be given to further public clarification of the role of the NDNAD and reinforcement of the message that it is intended only to be used for criminal intelligence."
	I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) would agree with that. Ministers would do well to take on board those recommendations from the ethics group.
	In addition to commending our amendment to the Government, I should also like to commend some of the principles suggested by the pressure group Liberty on how we should balance human rights principles with the necessity for an effective fight against crime and terrorism. As well as advocating the overarching principle of the proportionate retention of DNA, which I strongly support, Liberty suggests that three further principles be taken into account:
	"The relevance or probative value of DNA to the type of crime in question.
	The potential propensity of the trigger offender to future crime of a relevant nature.
	The gravity of both trigger offence and the type of crime feared in the future."
	I hope that the Minister will be able to look at those principles, as well as seriously to consider our amendment, which would help the process of putting DNA evidence on a proper footing, and therefore help in the fight against terrorism in the long term.

Keith Vaz: I am reluctant to enter into a discussion of this nature with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because he knows so much more about the criminal justice system than I do. I am sure that he has come across many examples involving this requirement. However, this is the same argument that Home Office Ministers have put forward whenever this point has been raised at Question Time. Either we retain these data for the whole country or we cover only those who are charged with offences. I am against covering the whole country—I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be against it, too—because it would be an unnecessary burden on the citizen and because of the many cases of the loss of data that have occurred in the past 10 years. If we have a database that contains information on 60 million people, it is likely that, at some stage, bits of it, or perhaps the whole lot, could get lost—through no fault of Ministers, of course. Such a system would encourage loss simply because of the amount of data being held.
	That is why I am against such a proposal. It represents a dangerous argument. There is, however, a high number of profiles of ethnic minority people—Afro-Caribbean people in particular—on the database. Some judges have suggested that, because it is unfair that so many young black people are on it, it might as well cover everyone, as a way of being more fair. I do not think that that is the right approach. We should not retain more information because we need to justify an argument.
	One of my constituents came to see me recently. He had been out with his friends one evening, and they had gone to a pub. There was a fight outside the pub, and a young girl was being harassed by a man. My constituent intervened to prevent the fight from developing further. The police were called, and everyone was arrested. Everyone's DNA sample was taken. The police subsequently released my constituent, saying, "Thank goodness he intervened. He prevented the violence against the woman from being exacerbated." He wrote to the police asking for his DNA sample to be removed from the database, but the reply that he received was, frankly, pathetic. The sample remains on the database.
	The shadow Home Secretary, the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), is known as a have-a-go hero. I can well imagine him removing his shirt and jacket to reveal a big "S" or a big "D" on his vest, and intervening to stop a crime being committed. The police would arrive at the crime scene and take everyone's DNA. It would be put on the database. How would the hon. and learned Gentleman, clearly an active citizen and an innocent person, apply to have his data removed?
	This is a crucial issue, and it is not enough for the Government to advance the arguments that they have advanced in the past—namely, that we have to retain this information because people will, at some stage in their life, commit an offence.

Christopher Huhne: The Liberal Democrats welcome many of the concessions that the Government have made since we last debated this Bill. It is a shame that they could not have made those concessions earlier and prevented the ugly scenes and arm-twisting we saw when the 42-days provision was passed in this Chamber by the narrowest of margins.
	On Second Reading, I said that we would fight tooth and nail against illiberal provisions on 42-days detention without charge and on abandoning juries in coroners' courts. I am glad that, with the help of the official Opposition in the Lords, we have been able to see off those proposals and that the amendments passed in the other place on them will be supported on both sides of this House.
	On the specific amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), the Lords amendment calls for national guidelines, and that would allow the Secretary of State to vary the guidelines for different agencies, should he or she see fit.

Christopher Huhne: In fact, the guidelines make it clear that if the case is still under investigation, that objection will apply, but if the case is no longer under investigation—if the DNA has been found at the scene of the crime but the crime has been cleared up—it will appropriate to take the DNA off the database. The hon. Gentleman's objection is not a real one.
	Prompted by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), I reiterate to the Minister that if he were minded to accept the Lords amendment and the Conservative amendment, we would be happy to support that.

Simon Hughes: It is completely misconceived to argue that we need the qualification proposed by the Conservatives to deal with a category of people. Categories of people can be dealt with in the regulations as they cover the range of agencies, so the proper concern of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) can be better addressed by retaining the Lords amendment as it is, rather than by modifying it in the way that he suggests.

Douglas Hogg: I am rather torn both on the amendment and on the Lords amendment. I hope the House will accept that I approach most criminal justice matters from within the libertarian wing, so I am conscious that some of the views that I will express are not those that I would normally express in this context. I suspect that they are not shared by those on my party's Front Bench or by most of my hon. Friends. So far as the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) is concerned, I am bound to say that my preference is for the Lords amendment.
	It seems to me that the disadvantage of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend is that it would enable the Government to choose which agencies will be the subject of the procedures envisaged in the Lords amendment. My hon. Friend has a perfectly decent reason to be worried, as his coda to agencies is based on the question of whether possible terrorist suspects will get information that they should not have.
	Such a fear is perfectly realistic, but it seems to me that at least two responses can properly be made. First, we could so construct the secondary legislation as to enable the Government to defuse that risk by the contents of the regulations, on which we could take a view. It seems that that would protect the interests about which my hon. Friend is concerned. Secondly, I am very cautious about giving discretionary power to a Secretary of State because, at the end of the day, we need to cling to the principle that once power is given to any official or to the Executive, it is certain to be abused on occasion. Therefore I do not feel comfortable with my hon. Friend's amendment and am not minded to vote for it if he presses it to a Division.
	That takes us to the Lords amendment. Again, I confess to being torn. There are advantages and disadvantages. Perhaps I could identify them and then suggest the proper view. The advantage of the Lords amendment is that it brings consistency—or is capable of bringing consistency—by the publication of the procedures. I think that it is undesirable that varying police forces should have different approaches to the issue of removal and disclosure. I see great merit in it being said that police forces across the country should operate to a common code. That is the advantage. It is a considerable advantage and I do not want to pretend otherwise.
	The disadvantage is that the amendment is a marked move away from the proposition that we should have an ever-expanding database, perhaps moving to a national database. I want to say a word about that, if I might, before I come to a conclusion. I recognise that there are serious disadvantages and arguments to be deployed against a national database, particularly a DNA one.
	The advantage of a national database, leaving aside all other issues, is huge. It is not only the most effective single detective weapon currently available to the enforcement agencies but is a huge deterrent in itself. I did a case two or three years ago involving a very bad rape, and the rapist was discovered only because 10 years after the event the police were going through old samples that they then could not profile and now could and they happened to discover the rapist on the database.
	If one projects such an idea forward, one appreciates that many potential criminals, such as rapists, will be conscious that they leave DNA samples on the site. That is a huge deterrent. It is not only a detective instrument but a deterrent, especially as the forensic scientists become more skilled in gathering DNA. Low-copy profile DNA, for example, can operate on very small samples, so such profiling is a huge deterrent as well as a detective instrument. I suspect that it is the single most effective measure that we can adopt to decrease crime.
	On the other hand, I acknowledge that there are serious civil liberty issues to debate, although I am not persuaded by them. There is no question but that we need to debate them. There are huge costs involved and I have no doubt that there are huge practical difficulties to resolve. I have not come to an absolute conclusion, but we should not shut the door on the debate. The question of whether we should move gradually towards a national database is very important.

Douglas Hogg: I am not disagreeing with my hon. and learned Friend. The conclusion to which I am going to come is that we can support the Lords amendment. My point at this stage is that the House and the country as a whole should have a serious debate about the desirability and practicality of a national database. I do not pretend that I have come to a wholly concluded view, because I think that the civil rights arguments might be more powerful than I currently deem them to be. I also question whether we can wholly exclude the risk of wrongful convictions based on DNA and I ask what safeguards should be incorporated. There are very important issues to be reflected on, but the use of the database is something that we should debate seriously, and anything that impliedly stands against it is something that I am very uncomfortable with.

David Jones: When Baroness Hanham moved the Lords amendment in the other place she said that her aim was
	"to try to spark a national debate about the retention of samples and to inform the public about what information is being held on them."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 4 November 2008; Vol. 705, c. 132.]
	If this debate is anything to go by, she has certainly succeeded in her aim—if only by virtue of the contribution from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg).
	There is considerable disquiet throughout the country, and certainly throughout the House, about the extent of the database. We have heard already that the details of some 4.5 million individuals are currently kept on the database, which is growing at the rate of more than 500,000 entries a year. In a parliamentary answer only last month, we heard that some 857,000 individuals with no current convictions also have their data stored on the computer.
	Clearly, no one has any quibbles about the existence of the database, which has proved itself to be an exemplary tool in fighting crime. However, there is disquiet about its extent and, especially for the purposes of this debate, about its opacity when people seek access to the information that it contains and apply to have information removed.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) said, the only guidance appears to be that contained in the Association of Chief Police Officers "Retention guidelines for nominal records on the Police National Computer". As he also said, it is a masterwork of opacity: it appears to be designed to defeat the efforts of the very best Googler, and I certainly had huge difficulty finding it on the internet earlier this week.
	We have heard that the guidelines are clear to the extent that they positively advise obfuscation. They say that the first response, which is to be automatic, to a request for destruction is to refuse it without further consideration. However, we are told that if the applicant persists, the chief constable for the relevant force is to make the decision, yet the guidelines make it abundantly clear that the discretion vested in the chief constable is to be exercised only rarely. We are told that there is a library of precedents to which chief constables can have access when deciding the basis on which to make their decision, but that library—as far as I know—is not available to the public.
	Like the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), I have constituency experience of trying to obtain the removal of a constituent's details from the database. The incident involved a retired senior police officer who had been charged with a serious offence of misconduct in public office. The investigation and the period before trial occupied eight months; needless to say, it was a period of extreme anxiety for my constituent and his family. Ultimately the case came before Chester Crown court, where it collapsed in circumstances that can be described only as complete disarray on the part of the prosecution. Subsequently, my constituent, who had suffered extreme trauma as a result of the experience, tried to have his name removed from the database. We are talking about digitised details of the very essence of an individual—in this case, a completely innocent individual who had been exonerated by the Crown court yet who nevertheless found that his data were on the national database in the company of the biometric data of convicted rapists, terrorists and murderers. Understandably, he wanted his details removed.
	In response to my request, I received a letter from the chief constable of North Wales police. The letter broadly followed the template that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford mentioned—template A in appendix 2 to the ACPO guidelines. It followed the guidelines almost word for word, except that at one particular juncture the chief constable decided to ski off-piste. He said:
	"The Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 amended the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, providing the police in England and Wales with the power to retain DNA samples and fingerprints, relating to persons following acquittal at court or other discontinuance of a case.
	I must admit to being personally surprised by this decision and I am not sure parliament fully understood the implications of its decision. However, the Act is clear enough and I am bound to act by its provisions."
	In other words, it would appear that the chief constable of North Wales police decided to enter the debate about the retention of DNA ahead of the House. He clearly thinks that the current legislation is nonsense. His letter continued:
	"If I were to exercise my discretion in this case, then I would have to exercise my discretion in similar cases, thus it would not be a rarity."
	There is, therefore, almost no circumstance in which a chief constable will exercise that discretion, which is a lamentable state of affairs. Clearly, the present arrangements are opaque and unsatisfactory.

Vernon Coaker: I thank all Members who have contributed to this important debate about the DNA database, DNA more generally and what is right or wrong in how things are done at present. As some Members said, whatever the rights or wrongs of the amendments, they have generated debate and a discussion of the rights and wrongs of the policy, not only in this House but also in the other place. I shall try to cover the various points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and other Members, but no doubt if I miss anybody out they will intervene.
	I beg to move that the House disagrees with the Lords in their amendment No. 2, which would, as we know, add a new clause 14.

Vernon Coaker: As hon. Members will be aware, we share a common desire to resolve the issue of ensuring that an inquest can be held that is article 2 compliant and enables bereaved relatives and other interested parties to be involved to the extent that is necessary to safeguard their legitimate interests and to allow proper understanding of the circumstances of the death of the individual, while ensuring that sensitive material is properly protected. The issue of sensitive material arises in a very small number of inquests, but we need to ensure that the finder of fact can consider all the relevant material while ensuring that sensitive material, and the way in which that material was obtained, is protected from public disclosure. This is because disclosure could damage national security or ongoing police investigations.
	In order to address this problem in relation to inquests, the Government's proposals, which we intend to bring forward in coroners legislation in the next Session, would permit the Secretary of State to issue a certificate requiring an inquest to be held without a jury if in the opinion of the Secretary of State the inquest will involve the consideration of material which should not be made public in the public interest, including to a jury or interested persons.

Vernon Coaker: I certainly will.
	The coroner, who would continue to be a fully independent judicial office holder, would be security cleared to receive all relevant material. Only those parts of the inquest involving the consideration of material which should not be disclosed publicly would be held in private in the absence of the next of kin. Wherever possible, the inquest would take place in public with the next of kin, other interested parties and their legal representative present.

Jeremy Corbyn: I thank the Minister for that, and I understand that we are going to debate the matter in the next Session, but my concern is about what we are doing today. Are we about to pass legislation, if his proposals are agreed to, that will in effect bring about secret coroners' courts?

Vernon Coaker: I certainly can. The hon. Gentleman will know about the Chilcot review. That review established a number of principles for the programme of work to be done, and a number of right hon. Members on the Privy Council are taking that work forward. There are three phases of work, and we are reaching the end of phase 1. The Minister who preceded me in my post, now the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), said that we would report regularly to Parliament on where we had got to with regard to the Chilcot review and intercept as evidence, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we will bring that report to Parliament in the not-too-distant future, to update Members. I hope that that is helpful to him.

Pete Wishart: The Minister is being generous in giving way. Can he clarify something for me, because we are getting confused about access to information, especially for families who have lost relatives who are soldiers abroad? As he will know, in Scotland, we do not have coroners' courts; we have fatal accident inquiries. However, coroners' courts still cover the deaths of Scottish soldiers abroad. Indeed, one of my constituents was subject to such an inquest. Can the Minister guarantee that there will be full disclosure of information to families so that they can understand the reasons behind such tragic deaths?

Vernon Coaker: We want as full a disclosure as possible, but I cannot guarantee that it would be possible to disclose every bit of information.
	In answer to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), I point out that much of this debate will take place in connection with future legislation, which is part of the reason why we agree with some of the Lords amendments. They take out many of the provisions concerned, which will allow us to discuss in the next Session many of the matters involved.

Vernon Coaker: We look forward to receiving the report from the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. Certainly, we will have to consider the retention of material alongside the other points that have been made.
	The Chilcot review also recognised that, in criminal proceedings, the ability to choose not to put intercept product into the public domain afforded an important safeguard. I believe that amendment No. 106 is flawed because of the inadequate protection it affords. However, there are other problems, too.
	It is unclear how the new clause for which amendment No. 106 provides would work in practice in the absence of any legislative mechanism to ensure that a High Court judge is appointed to hold inquests involving the consideration of such material. There are provisions for a coroner to appoint a deputy coroner, who is a High Court judge, should he choose to do so. However, as with other suggestions that have been made for safeguards, too much is left to chance and national security needs must take precedence.
	When the amendment was debated in the other place, concern was expressed about the need to allay fears that there is any sort of shoot-to-kill policy. We need to recognise the important role that the Independent Police Complaints Commission plays on those rare occasions when individuals are shot by armed police officers. It has a responsibility to investigate all the facts and make a recommendation to the Crown Prosecution Service about whether an offence has been committed. Its reports are also a crucial source of information to the inquest.
	We recognise the importance of ensuring that bereaved relatives and other properly interested persons should be involved in as much of an inquest as possible. However, it is always necessary to strike a balance between the interests of the families and the public interest when material that is central to the inquest cannot be disclosed publicly.

Douglas Hogg: Would the provisions not be further improved if proposed new subsection (8B) in Lords amendment No. 106, to which my hon. Friend is referring, were amended to the effect that the disclosure would not be injurious to the national interest? Then there would be two tests: first, whether disclosure was essential to the finding of the necessary facts; and secondly, whether disclosure would be injurious to the national interest.

Christopher Huhne: I am delighted that, following discussions here and in the other place, the Government have seen fit to withdraw their very substantial proposals for changes to the coroners system—to confer on the Secretary of State the ability to halt a coroners inquest in mid flow, to replace the coroner and to meet in secret. It seemed to me that those were extremely dangerous proposals; I hope that the Minister will not bring them back in any forthcoming coroners Bill.
	It may be easy to forget, but the coronial system has been a bulwark of our freedoms in this country for a very long time. The ability to investigate a death, particularly one at the hands of an agent of the state, has been an absolutely essential guarantee against overweening state power. Many generations have fought against excesses—they have come from the Tudor secret service and beyond—to establish an independent system. It is crucial that it continues to operate independently, which is why I was so pleased that at least parts of the Bill had been removed.
	Apart from those remarks, I do not want to open up a wider discussion at this stage, but I want to focus specifically on Lords amendment No. 106, because it deals with a relatively technical point that was overlooked in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

Jeremy Corbyn: I agree with the hon. Gentleman and he is correct to refer to that particular case. Is he confident, however, that the Lords amendment will bring about the required timetables necessary to prevent the trauma that families go through, waiting months, if not years, for an inquest to take place?

Christopher Huhne: In response to the hon. Gentleman, I am not confident that this is the last word on the subject. I agree that we will need to consider reforms to the coronial system and I believe that a coroners Bill is, frankly, overdue. Many other issues need to be dealt with to speed up inquests and ensure that adequate and efficient investigation takes place. I believe, however, that the Lords amendment is a step forward and we should not allow the best to be the enemy of the good. In this particular case, I hope that the Government will accept the amendment, not least because it will avoid yet further embarrassment in being arraigned before the European Court of Human Rights over their failure to abide by article 2. The Rodney family's lawyers are confident that their case will be successful. I am no lawyer, but my advice is the same.
	We must not forget the Government's promise a year ago to change the law to allow this inquest to go ahead. Today, the Government have a chance to honour their pledge. The amendment does, it seems to me, strike a sensible balance, bearing in mind that we are entrusting this matter to a very senior member of the judiciary, as the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) pointed out. It is simply not the case that the amendment would allow a wide disclosure of very sensitive material, as Lord West, the Minister in the other place, claimed it would. It would allow the disclosure only of RIPA-related material, and would allow that only when a High Court judge is sitting as a coroner and is satisfied that the material is essential to finding out how someone died.

Jeremy Corbyn: I will be brief.
	I spoke on this subject during our earlier debates on the Bill. Although all the publicity was given to the issue of periods of detention, I considered the issue of secret sittings of coroners' courts to be of greater importance to anyone concerned about liberties. The number of days for which people are detained is relatively arbitrary, but the provision on coroners' courts would have been extremely serious, so I was very pleased when the House of Lords came up with a compromise amendment.
	Let me record my thanks to and appreciation and admiration for the organisation Inquest, referred to by the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne). That organisation, which is based in my constituency, has done amazingly good work over a long period in supporting the families of people who have died in custody. Nothing is popular about such cases, but the organisation has been dogged in pursuing them. I think we should appreciate the value of civil society organisations of that kind which do so much to promote decent standards and liberty, and which help the House to produce better legislation.
	As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, this is not the first occasion on which the House has eaten its words, and it will probably not be the last. I was relieved by the decision reached by the House of Lords, but I hope that the Minister will be able to help us further. I understood that the Government had accepted the Lords' view, and I am therefore surprised that they are asking us to reject the amendment. The Minister outlined the provisions of new legislation, which was helpful—this is not a criticism—but I am slightly worried that we will not be revisiting the whole issue in the new coroners Bill. It seems that we shall return to where we were previously in this Bill, with what I consider to be the dangerous precedent of court hearings taking place virtually in secret.
	A death in custody, a serviceman's death or a death as a result of a police shooting is obviously horrific. It is devastating for the family involved, who may understandably have great difficulty coming to terms with the reason for the death and even greater difficulty coming to terms with the complete lack of evidence offered to them in public, and the failure to make any information available to them. The trauma is very great. In my constituency, I have dealt with the families of people who have died in police custody or in similar circumstances, and I know that the trauma they undergo—constantly questioning what went on, but not being allowed to know—is very serious indeed.
	The other punishment for families is the lack of a timetable. If the inquest is repeatedly delayed—for years on end, in some cases—there can be no closure for those families. The bereavement goes on, and they will never entirely get over the loss of a loved one, but at least the completion of a judicial process provides an element of closure that allows them to move on a little. Perhaps the Minister will help us a little on the question of timetables as well.
	I have some understanding of why the House of Lords came up with this compromise. It is clearly far better than what was in the Bill before, in that it empowers a High Court judge to decide whether or not material is sensitive. Nevertheless, I am slightly nervous about the amendment. I feel that it is too easy for agents of the state, be they the armed forces, police, social service departments or the health service, to say, "Hang on. There's something very peculiar and sensitive about this", and to tell the judge that they would prefer the material not to be disclosed.
	I hope that a judge would stand up for the public interest and the interests of the family, but I think the best way of enabling that to happen is to make it extremely difficult for any degree of secrecy to surround any death in custody. If we do not make that difficult now, as we pass the legislation, further down the line it could easily become routine for public bodies to say, "We want the hearing to take place in secret because it will be far too inconvenient for us if all this comes out."
	I assume that if the Government have got the legislation wrong, which is conceivable, article 2 of the European convention on human rights will form the basis of a case that could go to the European Court. Article 2 places a positive duty on the state to investigate a death in custody with an inquiry that is on the state's own initiative, is independent both institutionally and in practice, is capable of leading to a determination of responsibility and the punishment of those responsible, is prompt, allows for sufficient public scrutiny to ensure accountability, and enables the next of kin to participate. Unless all those criteria are met, we will clearly fall foul of a European convention that we ourselves support. I hope that they will all be met, either in this Bill or in the new coroners Bill that we shall deal with in the next Session. The European convention does actually mean something, and it is quite an important mechanism of defence.
	Time is of the essence. I was worried by the Minister's reference to another body which, acting as an intermediary between the horrific event of a person's death in custody and the opening of an inquest, would conduct some sort of investigation. That strikes me as a likely recipe for delay, for the creation of a fog around something that ought to be clearly visible, and for even more pain and stress for the families of those who lose their lives in the circumstances that we are discussing. It is up to us as a Parliament to ensure that agents of the state who cause a person's death are brought to justice, and above all that the families of those who have lost their lives are fully aware of all the evidence and of what caused the deaths of their loved ones.

Douglas Hogg: Before I deal with the tightly drafted new clause tabled in the other place, I want to build on what the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said. I entirely agree with his underlying belief that when the agents of the state have caused deaths, it is essential that the surrounding facts are made apparent, through inquests and to the families.
	In Committee, I deeply opposed the provisions then incorporated in the Bill, because they enabled the Government to withhold whole classes of information from an inquest—for instance, information that would damage this country's relationship with another power, and information that would be damaging for any other proper reason. I cited a specific example, which I shall repeat now.
	Let us suppose that someone died in the course of extraordinary rendition—which is not impossible, given the nature of extraordinary rendition—and happened to be in an aircraft that touched down at Heathrow. I can envisage the Government intervening to prevent details of the death from being made public in order to protect their relations with the United States. That is but one example. I was deeply concerned when the Minister said that the new coroners Bill would incorporate most of the language of the Counter-Terrorism Bill as it was in Committee, and I would robustly oppose such wide powers being given. Therefore, I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Islington, North said.
	I shall try to make my second point with some delicacy, as I do not want to do what I should not be doing in this context. I served in the Foreign Office for five years, in the course of which I saw a great deal of intelligence information because I had a responsibility, subject to the Foreign Secretary, for GCHQ. There are two areas that ought to concern the House, one rather more so than the other. The anxiety has always been the disclosure of techniques. I suspect that that is less of a problem than we think, but I agree that we none the less need to address it, and it is very good news that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) is sitting on the Chilcot committee. The other point, on which there is not sufficient focus, is whom we target for the purposes of intercept. As Members will appreciate, that is not always just individuals—it is sometimes institutions and others, and it may well not be in the public interest for the identity of some of the targets to be disclosed. That matter has to be seriously considered, and addressed in measures that come before this House.
	There are defects with the proposed new clause, but I shall vote for it as it is an important step in the right direction, and if this House were to pass it, further safeguards could be built into it in the other place. Starting from the proposition that there are the problems with the disclosure of intercept information that I have identified, I go on to the next proposition, which I think most people will agree with, that it is very important that credible and relevant evidence should always be available to a court or inquest, unless there is some overwhelming reason to the contrary. That is the proposition that is reflected in the new clause. There is a difficulty—both the Minister and I have referred to the nature of the problems—and the other place sought to address it in two ways: first, to confine the coroner with the relevant powers to a judge of the High Court; and secondly, to confine the circumstances in which the order-making power can be exercised to those set out in proposed new subsection (8B). There is a problem with that provision, because the High Court judge may direct a disclosure only if satisfied that the requirements of (8B) are satisfied in that disclosure is
	"essential to enable the matters that are required to be ascertained by the inquest to be ascertained"—
	in other words, we cannot ascertain the relevant facts unless we have the intercept material.
	The problem is, however, what if that intercept material is itself injurious to the state? For instance, it might identify a body, person or institution as being targeted when it is undesirable for that target to be disclosed. From reading the language of (8B), it seems to me that if the judge concludes that disclosure of the material is essential for the proper ascertaining of facts, notwithstanding the injurious nature of the disclosure the judge may well be obliged to order the disclosure. What is not provided for in (8B) is the balancing exercise. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), for whom I have the greatest of respect, says, "Well, you can expect a High Court judge to exercise good sense." Of course we can, but a High Court judge, or any old judge, has to exercise his powers in accordance with the criteria laid down by Parliament, and if Parliament does not say that respecting the national interest is a relevant criterion, I am by no means certain that, however sensible a High Court judge may be, he or she would be able to take steps to respect that.

Edward Garnier: The interchange between my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has been more illuminating than is often the case in debates of this sort. My right hon. and learned Friend has analysed not only what is wrong with the Bill and the Lords amendments, but how they can be improved. I was not a Minister, but I was on the edges of Government when he was in Government. I entirely accept what he says on the need, occasionally, for information to be kept out of the public domain. That is simply a matter of common sense, and I hope that none of us is naive enough to think that on every occasion, every piece of information in the hands of a state agency or the Government should be made public. Clearly, there are times when national security and the interests of criminal investigation require certain pieces of information to be kept out of the public's sight.
	Having said that, the implied, but not the express, position of a number of Members who have spoken in the debate, perhaps excluding the Minister, is that, by default, justice should be in public. When all things are equal—they rarely are—coroners' courts, whether chaired by a High Court judge or other judicial officer, should be in open court, with all relevant evidence being adduced, either before the coroner, if he is sitting alone, or before the coroner and the jury; and there should be full disclosure of all evidence between the interested parties and the court.
	The group of Lords amendments that we are briefly considering lead me to agree again with my right hon. and learned Friend, this time on how the kind of decisions that we are talking about should come to be made. As I understand it, at the moment, the Government want to place in the hands of the Secretary of State the power to issue certificates. That is unhealthy. It leads to secret government, let alone secret trials. Like my right hon. and learned Friend, I think that it would be much more sensible and, indeed, publicly more acceptable, for questions of that sort to be decided by the presiding coroner, be he a High Court judge or other judicial officer. In that way, the matter could be argued. It could be argued in chambers or in private, but it could none the less be argued.
	Clearly, such procedures are not novel. For example, espionage cases are tried at the central criminal court; and cases involving matters of acute sensitivity often involve applications to the judge that certain parts of the evidence, or all of it, should not be disclosed in public, meaning that it should not be heard in the presence of people in the public gallery or members of the press. Such things do not happen every day, but they happen quite frequently, so I do not see why a similar procedure could not be drawn across into the system of coroners' inquests. The Lords amendment mentions a High Court judge, but I have no doubt that any experienced coroner, circuit judge or whatever judicial officer is appointed to deal with any inquest, could make a decision on the grounds of national security, public safety or whatever, in a just and sensible way, case by case.
	My second point is this: we were promised a coroners Bill in this Session's draft legislative programme and in the last Queen's Speech, and we are being promised one in the coming Queen's Speech, and it strikes me that the issues we are discussing ought to be dealt with discretely, in the round, in a coroners Bill. However, measures are now being tacked on to a Counter-Terrorism Bill.
	This brings into our discussions all sorts of interesting influences. Hon. Members will remember the problems that the Prime Minister got himself into with the Government of Iceland, who were deeply upset that Icelandic assets in this country had been frozen under counter-terrorism legislation. It so happened that the Act under which the Government froze those assets in London was the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, and it was under the "Security" bit that the assets were frozen. However, the Act's rather long title did not fit into the headline space of whatever the equivalent of  The Sun is in Reykjavik, so Icelandic people saw only the "Anti-terrorism" bit. Unsurprisingly, they were upset.
	Here, we are dealing with matters to do with inquests in a Counter-Terrorism Bill. Of course there is sometimes a connection between terrorist activity and inquests. For goodness' sake, the tube and bus bombings of July 2005 made that only too clear. However, if the Government are to be taken at their word on this occasion—I do take them at their word from time to time—why will they not lift part 6 out of the Bill and put it into the new coroners Bill, which they should introduce early in the next Session? That might lower the temperature.
	I should like to say, in parenthesis, that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) was entirely right to express concern about the application of article 2 of the European convention, as was the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), who also brought that point to the fore. A further point that I want to draw out from what the hon. Gentleman said earlier relates to the nature of the deaths that we are talking about. The provisions will deal with deaths in police custody and possibly even deaths in prison custody, depending on the character and antecedents of the deceased and on the geography of the location of the death. The hon. Gentleman will remember that—in the last Parliament, before the 2005 general election, I think—we passed the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. I might have got the chronology wrong, but as I recall it, the deal was that deaths in custody, in the prison service and in police cells, were not immediately to be brought under the remit of the Act. There was to be a delay of two or three years—

David Heath: I am referring to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg)—I think that I have got it right. My point was that, even if everyone accepted the arguments that Ministers adduced to support their contention that the provision was necessary for national security, they were not going to be content with that. Instead, in clause 77's proposed new section 8A to the Coroners Act 1988, they were determined that inquests should be held in secret
	"(a) in the interests of national security,
	(b) in the interests of the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country, or
	(c) otherwise in the public interest",
	however that "public interest" would be defined outside of national security. In other words, things could be secret simply because Ministers certified that they needed to be in the interest of avoiding embarrassment, or for some other reason.
	I am already distressed by the extent to which relations with other countries seem to have a bearing on the conduct of court proceedings in this country that I had always thought were immune from that sort of political pressure. For it to be written into new statute that a coroner's inquest would depend on whether another country or its rulers would be offended is to me abhorrent. I will not have coroners' inquests in this country determined and dominated by the mood or interests of some princeling in the Arab world, or wherever else.

Douglas Hogg: May I reinforce the hon. Gentleman's point? If a British subject died in Guantanamo Bay as a result of the treatment that he or she had received there, and the body was repatriated to the UK, I anticipate that there would be an inquest into the circumstances of the death. However, I expect that the Government would be extremely embarrassed about having conditions at Guantanamo bay revealed to the public, and that they would therefore utilise the clause to which he is referring.

David Heath: Precisely so, and we now know perfectly well that a fraud investigation can be stopped at the request of a potentate of another state. If an ally were to ask us not to proceed with an inquest because it might be embarrassing or cause problems domestically or internationally, we know that that request would be acceded to. That is what is so unacceptable.
	I was surprised and dismayed by what the Minister said in response to my challenge on this matter during his opening remarks. He seems to take the Bourbonist view that the Government will learn and forget nothing as a result of their experiences in the discussion of this Bill so far. Apparently, they will come back in the coroners Bill with precisely the same form of words that they are abandoning here. We are moving nowhere towards finding a satisfactory system. The Government will face exactly the same arguments against their proposals in the context of the coroners Bill, and eventually those proposals will be defeated in another place and we will be back to square one. We will not have moved forward one inch in providing for a quick, open and proper inquest for those who need one.
	There are strong reasons for not waiting for the coroners Bill and for trying to find a proper solution even at this stage. Those in another place who proposed the amendment have done a good job in pointing us towards a solution. If I were in the Minister's place I would be grasping that solution to try to find a workable way, in the Government's terms, to accept it. Some of the Government's arguments against the proposal are nonsense—for example, the idea that it is a lottery as to whether a High Court judge might be appointed to sit in a particular inquest. It is not a lottery; it is a matter of design. If the case required the appointment of a High Court judge as coroner, that is what would happen so that the inquest could go ahead. The Government need have no worries about that.
	The advantage of appointing a High Court judge is that it would give comfort to the Government that there would be a sufficiently high level of judicial consideration of the arguments that would inevitably be in their submission to ensure that they were properly taken into account. The High Court judge provision is a sop and a comfort to the Government, so they can have no argument against it.
	A great advantage of the proposal is that proceedings would be open—there would be a normal inquest in that sense. Another advantage is that there would be no delay. I heard what the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said—indeed I have some reason to agree that we must make sure that such cases are dealt with expeditiously—but there is nothing inherent in the proposal that would cause further delay. The right to an inquest jury is preserved, as is absolutely correct.
	The most important thing is the presumption that the material necessary for finding the circumstances of death will be provided unless there are good reasons why not. If there were good reasons why not, the coroner would have the opportunity to discover them and would make available to the jury as much material as possible under the criteria.
	The one difficulty is the problem that was the subject of an interchange between the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham and me about the criteria that the High Court judge would use to determine the submissions before him. We could refine the proposal to cope with that problem, although that does not for one moment suggest that the solution is imperfect. Indeed, as the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, it is something that is done regularly in criminal courts. All we need is accompanying protocols to make the amendment function satisfactorily.
	Even at this late stage, I hope the Government will realise that the proposal is a prospective solution to their dilemma. I strongly support it and I hope other Members will do so, too. It has flaws that need further attention, but if Ministers really think that in the next Session they can present us with a coroners Bill that contains the same clauses that we are knocking out today because they are so unsatisfactory from the point of view of many Members of the House and the majority in another place, they have another thing coming.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the Minister responds, I am anxious not to stifle debate, and I can see how closely these matters are linked, but we ought to deal with one Bill at a time.

Douglas Hogg: The Minister invites us to disagree to amendment No. 3 because it is unnecessary. I have examined the Bill and I cannot see any residual power that would enable the Government to extend pre-charge detention beyond 28 days. However, will he give us an undertaking that no power is concealed in the Bill, which can be exercised by statutory instrument, that would enable the Government to extend pre-charge detention beyond 28 days? I cannot find it, but I would like an undertaking.

Damian Green: My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and one that I was about to come to. The key point in this group of amendments is how they intersect with the draft Bill and what we should do about it. As we decide whether to remove the stark, declaratory new clause proposed by Lords amendment No. 3, it is important for us to consider both the fact that the Government have produced the draft temporary provisions Bill and the way they wish Parliament to address it—or, as it would seem, not to address it—in the current period of calm.
	Like many in all parts of the House, we on the Conservative Benches have made it clear all along that we would look at any evidence that supported any extension of pre-charge detention. Everything that we have said and argued throughout this long process has been predicated on the basis that if Ministers came forward with any credible evidence that persuaded us there should be an extension of pre-charge detention, we would look at it seriously and take a view on it. I am sure that that is true of the Home Affairs Committee and all the other bodies that have been weighing up that difficult balance.
	As we stand here today at the last stage of this Bill's legislative scrutiny, the truth is that at no stage has any credible evidence been produced to support the Home Secretary's contention that extending the 28-day limit was necessary. The fact that such a wide coalition—of experts as well as Opposition parties—has assembled against the Government is very clear evidence that they never had a case for extending beyond 28 days. It is a tribute to their Lordships that they not only defeated the proposal, but did so with the largest majority on a whipped vote that anyone in the other place can remember. It was not just defeated, but knocked out of court altogether.
	Those who are in favour of reforming the House of Lords should acknowledge that, in this instance, it did its job superbly and could not have done it better—not least because the size of its majority has dominated the terms of the debate in this House, too. The majority in the other place was so big that even this Government did not have the nerve to try to ram the proposal through under the Parliament Act.
	On the substantial issue, there should be no difference between the Front Benchers because, wherever possible, we strive for agreement on security matters. The Home Secretary has said all along that she wants a consensual solution, and so do we, as it goes without saying that there is no division on fighting terrorism; it is the method of doing so that has divided us during the Bill's passage, as this group of amendments shows.
	Let me move on to the temporary provisions Bill. The Minister will already have been made aware from comments on both sides of the House that we regard this as a deeply unsatisfactory process. As he said, the Bill is in the Library, we can all read it, we can all think about and discuss it, but the one thing we cannot do is to undertake any of that in an organised way. When pre-legislative scrutiny was introduced into our procedures, it was a very good and useful reform. Surely if formal pre-legislative scrutiny should be used at all, it should be in respect of a Bill that is already published and that the Government know they would dream of introducing only in an extreme emergency—at a point when people's emotions would be running extremely high. As it happens, we have the chance to discuss the Bill at the moment in a calm and reflective atmosphere. I cannot think of conditions in which pre-legislative scrutiny would be more appropriate.

Damian Green: The Government's motion to disagree with their Lordships needs to be seen from the perspective of their ultimate intention. The Minister has assured us that there are no powers in the Bill to bring back pre-charge detention beyond 28 days, yet we know from the draft Bill that the Government wish to keep that power in reserve. I hope that the House will take that into account when it hears the Minister asking us to agree to disagree with their Lordships on this matter. His case is materially weakened by the existence and content of the draft Bill and by the fact that we are not allowed to scrutinise it properly. I am sure that all Members will bear that in mind when deciding whether to give the Government the benefit of the doubt on this group of amendments.

Christopher Huhne: The Liberal Democrats are very pleased that the Government have decided not at this time to press for any further extension of the period of detention without charge. We are not in any way being softer on terrorism or less enthusiastic about bringing terrorists to justice than any other party, but there is a fundamental disagreement about the correct and most effective way if tackling this situation. As the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) pointed out, this House passed this measure by only nine votes and nearly rumbled the Government in their arguments on the extension of the period of detention without charge, and the House of Lords then comprehensively did so, with a substantial majority voting against. There is no doubt that over the whole period that we have been considering this matter the arguments of the Government—of Ministers and the Prime Minister—have been comprehensively lost. I wish now to summarise why it is appropriate to press these amendments withdrawing the relevant provisions in the Bill to a vote.
	This country already has a period of detention without charge of 28 days. Ministers have in the past suggested that international comparisons are always difficult, but international comparisons between our country as a common law jurisdiction and other common law jurisdictions are not difficult. We have a longer period of detention without charge than any other common law jurisdiction. It is, in fact, more than double the length of the next longest period of detention without charge of such a country, which is Australia's period of 12 days. Even in Australia, the provisions for extending the period to 12 days specifically introduce periods of cooling off in between the interviewing of suspects.
	As I have pointed out, Sir Ken Macdonald, the outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions, clearly said that he did not need these powers precisely because conviction rates on terrorism are running substantially ahead of the Crown Prosecution Service's general success rate in serious crime. That shows that there is the necessary flexibility for the CPS to bring charges; it can bring charges against people, and it is unnecessary to hold them for prolonged periods.
	What is, perhaps, most important is that this country has always attempted to respect the principle of people being innocent until proven guilty, and the people who are most likely to be caught up in a prolonged period of detention without charge are the innocent, precisely because they are likely to resist and to fail to give any evidence. As a result, we have discovered that the majority of those who have been held right up to, or very near, the end of the period of 28 days have been totally innocent—innocent in the sense that there has been no desire to conduct further investigations or, as we know from what the Home Office has said, to take any further action taken against them of the sort that would be available under other provisions.
	There is a real risk that if we were to go down the road of extending detention without charge from 28 days in the draft Bill that the Home Secretary has placed in the Library, we would alienate a very substantial section of the ethnic minorities whom we need for our intelligence leads to find terrorists. Indeed, we also need them to come to court to give evidence as witnesses. As we know, the parallels are not exact, but there is no doubt that when the House went over the top and introduced disproportionate powers to tackle Irish terrorism in Ulster—internment—it had a dramatically counter-productive effect on the minority Catholic community's willingness to give evidence and come forward as witnesses.

Christopher Huhne: I entirely agree that 90 days would have been even worse. I must say that I have never understood exactly where the figure of 42 came from. Why was it 42 and not 40 or 44? I suspect that a secret fan of the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in the Home Office realised that the answer to life, the universe and everything is always 42. There does not seem to be any other basis for proceeding on 42 days.
	It worries us that there is a Bill in the Library that could be introduced when the Government think that our rational faculties, as a Chamber, were completely suspended. The Government have made it clear that they would proceed with the Bill only in the wake of another terrorist outrage, when, understandably, there would be considerable moral panic in the newspapers, including some of the tabloids.
	We know from history that some of the worst legislation that we have ever committed to the statute book was passed on precisely such occasions, when there is moral panic—for example, the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and the Official Secrets Act 1920, which was passed following a moral panic under the coalition Government in the first world war.

Keith Vaz: I cannot decide on my own what the work load of the Committee is to be. There are two other members of the Committee here, and we will certainly look at the matter as soon as we can, bearing in mind our schedule of work. It is in the interest of Parliament that we do that quickly.
	I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North, because it was not easy for him to be in a minority in his party. He clearly loves his party; he has been devoted to it and supported it, and he very rarely rebels against it, as we can see from his legislative record. He has supported the Government almost without exception over the past 11 years, and it was not easy for him to vote against them, to be the focal point of the campaign on 42 versus 28 days, or to come to the Select Committee after months of scrutiny before we published our report and to be the only member of his party to vote against the proposal. That was not easy for him, especially when Conservative and Liberal members all came to one conclusion on the matter.
	I should like to remind the House that this is a debate about 42 days, not about the draft Bill. The Committee said:
	"If, in...exceptional circumstances, a temporary extension of the pre-charge detention period is deemed essential to secure successful prosecutions of terrorist suspects, the Government should consider building support for proposals that effectively reform the powers of the CCA"—
	the Civil Contingencies Act—
	secure parliamentary scrutiny and judicial oversight, but stop short of the requirement to declare a full-scale state of emergency. We urge the Government to begin urgent discussions with other parties on this basis."
	We talked about the exceptional circumstances to which the Government referred in the draft Bill that was placed before the House on 13 October. The Opposition have talked about an emergency situation, as did Lord Goldsmith. He is a dear friend of mine and I respect him greatly, and when he was Attorney-General he supported 90 days—indeed, I too voted for 90 days—as did the previous Lord Chancellor, whom I served as Parliamentary Private Secretary. These are people of the highest possible eminence, and they accepted that there would be an emergency.
	Liberty also accepts that, and even the great Shami Chakrabarti, for whom I have huge admiration, accepts that. I know that the Conservative party has also recently had huge admiration for Liberty, proving that being in opposition is a wonderful thing --[ Interruption. ] The Liberal Democrats have always loved Liberty. Shami Chakrabarti has mentioned exceptional circumstances by referring to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, because that is all about declaring a state of emergency. Let us not delude ourselves: we accept that there may be an emergency.
	The hon. Member for Eastleigh also spoke about an emergency. He does not want to consider such legislation in the middle of a crisis, in which people have been blown up and the police are raiding homes and arresting and questioning people. He does not want to have the discussion then, so he acknowledges that such a situation will happen. He is right: Parliament must prepare for that in advance. A Home Secretary should not have to come before the House and make a statement, with everyone rushing around like headless chickens, and say that we have to support the Government, because if we do not we will be supporting terrorism.

Edward Garnier: Although I frequently agree with the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who is also my neighbour, the matters that we are dealing with today do not represent closure. By the very nature of the Government and the Home Secretary's production of the draft counter-terrorism temporary provisions Bill, in which clause 1(2) substitutes 42 days for 28 days, they are constantly reminding us that the Home Secretary found the decision of the other place to stick to 28 days rather than 42 days deeply disagreeable.
	The Home Secretary will not drop the bone. She will not let the matter go. She is behaving almost like Violet Elizabeth Bott rather than a rational Home Secretary. She refuses to see that she has lost the argument and she will go on stamping her feet. The draft Bill represents the stamping of her feet. I agree with the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and all the others who advanced arguments against the 90 and 42-day limits. I have grave doubts about the 28-day limit, but that is the decision that both Houses of Parliament have arrived at. We ought to stick to that for the time being.
	It is tempting for a Government who have been defeated in the unelected House—a Government who managed to get the provision passed in the summer only by what I shall call an unusual majority, as I do not want to use unparliamentary language—to try to achieve their goal of a 42-day limit. I accept that politically and in terms of public relations such a defeat is very embarrassing and rather annoying, but it will not do for the Government to produce a moose under the table, as they say in Alaska—that is, what we used to call an elephant in the room—and to pretend that we cannot talk about it. The draft Bill is sitting in the Library and the Vote Office, partly as a threat and partly as a piece of Violet Elizabeth Bott-style spoiled child behaviour.
	Clause 22 of the Bill as it went to the other place, which has been knocked out by Lords amendment No. 4, defined something called a "grave exceptional terrorist threat". Such a threat meant
	"an event or situation involving terrorism which causes or threatens...serious loss of human life...serious damage to human welfare in the United Kingdom, or...serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom."
	Such an event is the precise trigger that would get the draft Bill out of the Library. I urge the Government and the right hon. Member for Leicester, East to ensure that the draft Bill or the concepts that lie in it are thoroughly discussed in an inquiry by the Home Affairs Committee. Along with the right hon. Gentleman, I was a member of that Committee in the early 1990s and I seem to remember that, regardless of its party political majority, we discussed matters of serious importance to the home affairs remit in a collegiate fashion.

Keith Vaz: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend at the start of his remarks. If the Select Committee undertook an investigation into the draft Bill, I think it would be a good idea, although it is up to the members of the Committee. Incidentally, I omitted to mention the presence in the Chamber of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), another of its distinguished members. I realise that management of the business of the House is not up to my hon. Friend the Minister or the Home Secretary, but will he use his good offices to make sure that as soon as the report is available, assuming it is carried out quickly, time will be made available to discuss it on the Floor of the House? I realise that is not a matter for my hon. Friend, but it is in everyone's interest.

Ian Pearson: I will go on to deal with that subject and if anything remains unclear at the end of my speech, I will be more than happy to take another intervention from the hon. Gentleman. However, let me say now that we think that the provisions here are suitable for the purposes for which we require them.
	The intention of the FATF's statement is crystal clear. For example, on Iran, it said:
	"The FATF calls on its members, and urges all jurisdictions, to strengthen preventive measures to protect their financial sectors from this risk."
	However, the UK's powers in the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 require a formal invocation of counter-measures by the FATF and, unfortunately, the statement did not use that specific term, owing to the concerns of certain members—a reluctance that the UK has run up against in other international forums attempting to take action on these important matters. The October statement therefore exposed potential difficulties with the UK's legislation: if the FATF does not formally call for counter-measures, we are unable to employ the powers in the money laundering regulations, no matter the scale of the risks.
	As the Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury explained in the other place, the Government do not have the option of simply adapting the money laundering regulations to alter the powers trigger to reflect the reality at the FATF. That is partly a reflection of the fact that the current money laundering regulations implement the EU's third money laundering directive, whose primary focus is member countries' internal money laundering controls and so contains only some powers to implement the FATF counter-measures; it therefore does not provide the basis for us to take the full set of steps outlined by the taskforce. However, in my view, it is in any event more appropriate for the provision of new powers to be set out in primary legislation, rather than in regulations made under a statutory instrument.
	It might be useful if I provide a brief recap of the content of the provisions that we are discussing. The amendments provide for the Treasury to apply a range of financial restrictions, but only in very specific circumstances. It may do so either in accordance with a recommendation of the FATF relating to the need to protect against the risks posed by money laundering and terrorist financing in a jurisdiction of concern, or it may do so on its own initiative because money laundering, terrorist financing or proliferation activity poses a significant risk to the UK's national interests.
	Specifically, the amendments would allow the Treasury to direct financial and credit institutions to impose: stricter requirements for customer due diligence, such as requirements to identify clients, beneficial owners and the nature of business relationships; stricter requirements for ongoing monitoring of transactions; a requirement to systematically report all transactions with designated entities; and a requirement to limit or stop business with designated entities.
	The range of measures proposed are essentially those that can be recommended by the FATF. They allow for a graduated approach in the monitoring and, where necessary, limitation of business with relevant entities. The measures are applied proportionately, using a risk-based approach. I note for the avoidance of confusion that they are not asset-freezing powers.
	The new powers have some application in connection with proliferation financing. As some hon. Members may be aware, however, the FATF counter-measures apply only to risks from money laundering and terrorist financing. Proliferation financing is an area of growing international concern. The UN, the EU, the FATF and the G7 have all expressed concern about financial systems being abused by proliferators. Indeed, under the UK presidency last year, the FATF included a responsibility to address proliferation financing in its remit and published a report on proliferation financing in June this year. The UN and the EU have provided new powers at international level to help to tackle the issue in relation to Iran, but they are not appropriate for dealing with serious proliferation risks. They do not, for instance, enable the UK to act to direct the ceasing of transactions. We have therefore moved to address that important and related area of concern in the provisions before us.
	The Government have been careful to ensure that appropriate safeguards relating to the exercise of those powers were included in the provisions. It is worth while briefly noting some of them for the record. First, directions applied beyond the level of individual firms have to be made via an order. In the case of a direction to limit or cease business, the order is under the affirmative procedure. In any event, all directions cease to have effect one year after being made. They can, of course, be renewed if necessary after that, or indeed revoked before the year has elapsed. Secondly, in the event of a direction to limit business, a licensing regime has been provided to enable the Treasury to minimise the impact on third parties. Thirdly, the provisions require the Treasury to report annually on the use of the powers. I understand that there was a good debate on the subject in the other place, and the Government committed to making a full report. Let me reiterate that commitment in this Chamber.
	When the Bill passed through the other place, further useful requirements were placed on the Treasury in its use of the powers, following cross-party engagement. There is now an explicit duty on the Treasury to ensure that any directions issued are proportionate to the threat that they are combating and do not impose unnecessary burdens on business. There is also now an explicit duty on the Treasury to assist supervisors and others in developing guidance, so that we can ensure that any directions issued can be implemented effectively. Of course, the Treasury would have exercised its powers in that fashion in any event, just as we do under our current regime, but we are happy to have such requirements stated in the legislation.
	The provisions also set out supervisory and enforcement structures for the new powers. The Government's intention is that the structures replicate those that were established in the Money Laundering Regulations 2007, which form the basis of our current anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime. We have therefore made in the amendments provision to extend the powers of the supervisory bodies that are responsible for financial and credit institutions, namely the Financial Services Authority, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the Office of Fair Trading and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Northern Ireland. That extension will enable them to supervise compliance with any directions, as part of their wider role. Again, the enforcement provisions were well debated in the other place, and useful amendments and clarifications were made.
	To conclude, in recent years, international pressure for action to counter terrorist financing, proliferation activity and money laundering has been increasing. The United Kingdom has led international attempts to tackle those threats and to protect the international financial system, but we are now restricted by the combination of factors that I have mentioned. In contrast, several of our international partners, such as the United States, France and Germany, already have, or also seek, similar powers. The UK Government seek such powers to enable the UK to take appropriate measures to protect itself from internationally recognised threats. The provisions under discussion would enable us to take the necessary preventative but proportionate action to protect UK national interests and prevent potential abuse of the UK economy. We do not believe that further powers will be needed in February, but we do believe that the provisions before us represent a full suite of counter-measures. I commend the Lords amendments to the House.

Damian Green: First, I should apologise to the House, because, while the Government provide variety on their Front Bench for the Treasury aspects of the Bill, sadly, on the Opposition Front Bench, the House is still stuck with me.
	Secondly, the Minister will agree—indeed, he indicated as much in his opening remarks—that this is a fairly extraordinary process. The provisions are extremely important to the Bill and to the wider battle against terrorism, but, although I quite understand the pressures, not only were the provisions not introduced in this House, but they were introduced at a late stage of the Bill's passage in the other place. Indeed, their Lordships were given little more than 24 hours to look at the measures before they were debated. I hear what the Minister says about the fact that the Financial Action Task Force laid down guidelines that the Government then had to follow, but I hope that he will agree that, for complex financial regulations in particular, this is not the way in which a Government should proceed.
	Like the Minister, I carefully studied the debate in the other place, and I agree that it was extremely good—robust, detailed and purposeful. Nevertheless, I suspect that the level of scrutiny that this important provision deserves will not be obtained, because of the way in which both Houses have had to discuss it. My noble Friend Baroness Neville-Jones made the point about "rushed legislation" and, perhaps even more importantly, about powers being used inappropriately. That is a serious long-term danger. If we discover that the provisions either do not do their intended job or cause problems for those whom they cover, it will be legitimate for people who are badly affected to ask, "Why wasn't Parliament doing its job?" The answer will be that, perhaps, Parliament was not given enough time to do its job.
	Recently, we saw the effect of the spill-over into the financial sector of legislation that people regarded as anti-terrorist with the Landsbanki case in Iceland. The Icelandic Government and people were offended enough by the actions of the British Government; their appearing to have fallen under the provisions of anti-terrorist legislation added insult to their injury. We would not want to repeat that type of diplomatic problem.
	Having said all that, I completely agree with the proposition underlying the measures in this element of the Bill. There are gaps in our ability to tackle the financing of terrorism—money laundering, and particularly the new phenomenon of proliferation financing, which the Minister identified. Some of the crimes involved are new, so we do not have the appropriate tools to deal with them. The need to deal with them, however, is self-evidently a policy objective that we Conservatives entirely share with the Government.
	As my noble Friends in another place made clear, we support the broad thrust of the amendments. Indeed, I am sure that I share with the Minister a slight sinking feeling at the Treasury's discovery that it does not have the powers to allow the UK to apply all the measures that the FATF has now decided are necessary. That could be an embarrassment to us. In these difficult times, we all want to protect the reputation of London as a financial centre, and we will need appropriate powers to stop terrorist financing, to preserve London's reputation in the years ahead. At the moment, we cannot require a business to be aware of all the risks, to take the extra diligence or to supply systematic reporting when transacting with jurisdictions of concern. Clearly, we need to be able to impose such requirements. I hope that the provisions will enable us to do so.
	The essential thrust of the provisions will meet no opposition from the Conservative party. However, the Minister will accept that they represent a significant extension to Treasury powers. As a consequence, even given the limited time scale, widespread consultation would have been extremely advisable, for the purposes of diplomacy and getting a more practical outcome. From what I have seen, the lack of such a consultation has been a fairly significant failure on the part of the Government. I was struck by the briefing provided by the British Bankers Association, which is absolutely central to the process of making the regulations effective. Its representatives say that late last month they were invited "at very short notice" to meet Treasury officials to discuss the amendments in this group. They go on to say:
	"There was therefore no prior formal consultation of industry and it is difficult if not impossible to say how they"—
	that is, the provisions—
	"will impact on the banking and financial services industry. No consideration has been given on how the proposed new powers will work in practice, nor indeed whether they will work properly in conjunction with other relevant legislation."
	In the context of the support that I offer the measures, I should say that that verdict is pretty damning from a trade body most affected by a new and important piece of legislation. Its representatives say that, as far as they can see, no consideration has been given to how the proposed new powers will work in practice, and that is surely unacceptable. In his concluding remarks, I hope that the Minister will address the issue of consultation and what has been happening. This briefing arrived yesterday afternoon, so it is clearly contemporaneous. The big banks that operate out of London feel that they are being ignored and steamrollered by these provisions.
	The BBA also makes the valid point—again, I hope that the Minister can comment on it—that the proposed regulations represent the Government overturning their own policy to require that a cost-benefit and an impact analysis be carried out before introducing new legislation. That has not been done. The BBA says that it is particularly concerned about schedule 7 and clause 64 and makes a number of specific recommendations, not all of which I necessarily endorse but to which I will turn in a moment.
	The House, and particularly the Minister, should consider the BBA's observations on the possible impact on its industry. First, it says:
	"It is not possible to assess the likely impact on industry with any accuracy or clarity given the absence of information from HMT about how they might use the new powers. This is both in regard to frequency of use and scope (especially in terms of individual transactions)."
	The Minister started to address some of those issues during his speech, but a much more detailed explanation will be needed to make it possible for the industry to respond intelligently. The BBA thinks that
	"the likely impact must be seen as potentially very wide",
	and goes on to say that
	"there is simply uncertainty about what operational difficulties might arise"
	on a day-to-day basis as a result of the exercise of these powers.
	The BBA also says, as one would expect:
	"Banks already seek to apply the FATF country risk assessments conscientiously."
	The FATF recently made statements on two countries, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, which resulted in many of the banks based in London but with significant customer bases in those countries taking a decision to raise the risk profiles on their internal assessment bases and extend those to carrying out enhanced due diligence and monitoring. The BBA says:
	"If the extended powers from this legislation were to be applied on a widespread basis and on a large scale, this would have a disproportionate operational impact on banks which is plainly not possible to quantify at present."
	The banks are doing their best to respond to increasing risk, but they do not know what effect these new regulations will have on them or whether, particularly given that some are in a fairly fragile state at the moment, they will add to costs.
	To put this into context, a large high street bank may have 3 million UK payments transactions a day and some 45,000 cross-border transactions. The BBA thinks that these provisions appear to mean that
	"banks may have to identify single transactions from among these totals or identify individual accounts and 'cease or limit business' on an individual account. This could require a whole new team of staff"
	in each bank
	"with specific new skills given the width of the Directions. Given the potential penalties for non-compliance, it could be difficult to find suitable staff willing to undertake this type of work (see Part 7 of Schedule 7 at para 30(5) where 'on conviction (for failure to comply with requirements imposed by direction) a person may receive a term of imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine or both'."
	A job may not look very attractive if the bank offering it has to say, in all honesty, "We don't know how these regulations are going to work. We don't know if our systems can cope with them because nobody has consulted us about bringing them in." If they cannot get the people to do the due diligence and regulation, then passing this legislation may well do more harm than good. It also makes a point about the term "financial restrictions". The BBA believes that a requirement for intensive manual implementation and monitoring could be introduced. It says that the term is not properly defined in the legislation, so it is impossible to anticipate how the Treasury might seek to implement it.
	The BBA says that it is not clear how the proposed legislation could affect the banks' decisions to take commercial decisions to close, or exit, customer accounts that are the subject of monitoring orders. It makes another point that seems valid, and which I hope the Economic Secretary can address. The proposal takes no account of the fact that there is an established process with the Serious Organised Crime Agency for exiting customer relationships. The orders may run for a year, which could completely cut across SOCA's existing procedures. I hope that that is not a symptom of legislating in haste, and that other parts of the legislative jungle are not being cut through by this Bill. We have all seen that happen in the past. One Department produces legislation while the legislation of another Department—in this case, the Home Office—tries to do the same thing in a different way, but the two teams have never got together. The result is chaos. There is a strong possibility, if we are to believe the BBA, that that will happen in this case.
	As I said, the BBA produced a series of recommendations, all of which I would like the Economic Secretary to comment on. He will say that some of them are impractical, and I will agree, but I hope he can at least give the House his initial thoughts on them. The BBA would like the Government to give the industry an opportunity to comment on any of the reports to Parliament on the Treasury's exercise of powers under the new legislation. That would be an obvious and easy thing to do. If there are going to be regular reports to Parliament, as well as discussions on the Floor of the House, Select Committees will become involved and the banks can give evidence to those Committees.
	The BBA also suggests—I suspect that the Economic Secretary will jib more at this—that any agreed new powers should be subject to a one-year sunset clause. That would allow for immediate implementation, which is before us now, but could later allow such powers to be replaced by more considered legislation. It wants further consideration of the scope of the proposed legislation, as some professional bodies that undertake financial transactions appear to have been excluded. That is my understanding of the legislation as well, and it is a legitimate question for the banks to ask. I can see why professional bodies that carry out financial transactions on behalf of their members may be excluded, but I can equally imagine why the banks, for which such transactions are their central activity, will feel somewhat hard done by if they are required to fulfil obligations that are not placed on others. At the margins, that might have some effect on the competitive environment.
	The final BBA recommendation was that guidance should be produced on scope, likely impact, right of appeal, oversight and legal issues before the new powers are exercisable. I understand that the powers will be exercised the day after the Bill has completed its passage—in all likelihood, within the next week. I hope that as we speak, teams of the Treasury's best brains are producing guidance and that it is ready to roll. If not, may I suggest that they get on with it quite quickly, because the banks feel that they are to be faced with an entirely new world and do not know how they are supposed to behave in it? I am sure that the Economic Secretary agrees that that would be a somewhat unsatisfactory position.
	I have almost never read such an anguished briefing at this stage of a Bill from a significant trade body, which is directly and seriously affected by this measure. The BBA is clearly in some pain because of the Bill and because it has not been properly consulted. I hope that the Economy Secretary can reassure the House and, perhaps more important, the BBA, that the body will become part of the process.
	The underlying point on which I would like the Economic Secretary to reflect is that, although we support the intention behind the amendments and hope that the measures turn out to be practical when they are implemented, it is important that the Treasury does not impose unnecessary burdens on businesses in the current climate. The aim must be to avoid a disproportionate operational impact on business and to ensure that the new powers are interpreted and applied so that they provide the protections that we all want against terrorist financing but do not either make business more difficult to conduct in London or, to take it to extremes, drive business away from London, which would be bad for the economy and for fighting terrorist financing. People might be driven to jurisdictions that are less conscientious about trying to clamp down on such financing.
	Although we support the general thrust of the amendments, the Economic Secretary has much on which to reflect and much to do to reassure those who will be directly affected by the regulations that they will not do great harm along with the good, which we all support.

Christopher Huhne: I shall try to be brief because many of my concerns closely mirror those of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). We are passing significant legislation, which includes new criminal offences, in the most extraordinary way that I can remember in this place—not that my experience here goes back very far. However, when we dealt with financial legislation in the European Parliament, I was pleased to have Treasury support for European Parliament amendments that introduced sunset clauses precisely because we were concerned about the implications of different financial regulations and we wanted to build a firm framework in which they would be reviewed. A four-year sunset clause is built into most European financial regulations for that reason. I am sympathetic to the British Bankers Association's view that a sunset clause is appropriate.
	Given that significant powers have been introduced in amendments in the Lords at a late stage, which have not been scrutinised in Committee here or even undergone careful scrutiny in another place, we are taking on trust from the Treasury basic aspects of legislation and the need for significant Executive powers. Liberal Democrat Members are reluctant to entertain that. We had taken the view, as we did in the Lords, that we would be as supportive as we could, but I reinforce the request of the hon. Member for Ashford for Treasury reassurance.
	The amendments do not even provide for an impact assessment, which is meant to be a clear requirement for new regulations according to Government policy, as is the case with European legislation. There is no sunset clause. It would be useful to have an assurance from the Economic Secretary on the record that a formal review will be conducted, perhaps with a report placed in the Library, so that we can ascertain the practical application of the new provisions.
	I find it worrying, too, that the people who are expected to apply the new regulations—in other words, the financial sector—have not had the benefit of clear guidance, even on something as fundamental as the right of appeal. That is not the sort of procedure that one would normally expect in legislation that has the effect of introducing new criminal offences. I had the occasion to scrutinise a Finance Bill on its progress through the House a couple of years ago, and I know that the Treasury plays fairly fast and loose on amendments to the Finance Bill. However, we are not talking about tax; we are talking about possibly depriving people of their liberty. The Treasury needs to be cautious about applying the light approach that we have seen it take towards tax legislation to something that serious.
	Although we shall support the proposal, albeit with a heavy heart, as we did in the Lords, I very much hope that the Minister can provide us with reassurances on the impact and on review and repeal, if not through a formal sunset clause—if the Treasury accepts the principle of sunset clauses on EU financial legislation, it should surely be prepared to accept one in this case. I hope, too, that he can give a firm commitment to provide guidance as quickly as possible on such key matters as scope and the right of appeal to those institutions that will be affected.

Ian Pearson: Let me respond briefly to the concerns that the hon. Members for Ashford (Damian Green) and for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) have raised. I explained the need for the legislation in my opening remarks and do not wish to reiterate that. However, I should point out that, as I explained, the fact that the Financial Action Task Force did not specifically invoke the countermeasures meant that the UK could not exercise its powers under the Money Laundering Regulations 2007. I simply make the point that those regulations are already on the statute book. The British Bankers Association and others are aware of them and how they are implemented on an ongoing basis.
	The Government recognise—and apologise for—the fact that the procedure has not been ideal and that there has been less time than we would have liked for consultation. However, we made significant efforts to consult relevant bodies before the amendments were tabled and some improvements were made to the provisions as a result. We were keen to consult the industry and have been working with the BBA. I can give the House the commitment that we will continue to work with the BBA on the detail of implementing the legislation, as well as with the joint money laundering steering group, which is a group of industry systems and compliance experts. We have also consulted all 28 of our current money laundering supervisors, which includes the FSA, the Office of Fair Trading and a range of professional bodies, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Law Society. The Serious Organised Crime Agency has also been consulted. As the powers are UK-wide, we have also consulted relevant bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
	The hon. Member for Ashford mentioned Landsbanki. Just to repeat what we have said about Landsbanki, we did not use anti-terrorism provisions when we took the actions that we did with regard to Iceland; rather, we proceeded on the grounds of economic security. The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 goes much further than terrorism, as I think the House is now aware.
	In response to the point about the Serious Organised Crime Agency, let me give the hon. Member for Ashford and the House the reassurance that there is no intention to duplicate or cut across existing SOCA procedures. We are certainly reassuring the industry of that and we are working with SOCA to ensure that it remains the case. Banks are already obliged to screen transactions for money laundering and financial sanctions imposed by the UN, the EU or the UK. The same systems and staff can be used to implement a direction to limit or cease business, minimising additional costs to any future organisations. We will, as I said, work closely with the industry on detailed issues of implementation, which is only right and proper.
	I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Ashford and that of the hon. Member for Eastleigh, even though it is perhaps grudging in the latter's case. This legislation is important and I accept that the procedure has not been ideal, but we will continue to work with the industry on any decisions or directions to be taken in the future.

Vernon Coaker: First, let me thank the hon. Members for Ashford (Damian Green) and for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) for their appreciation of the changes we have made and the amendments we have accepted, and I would like to go through the group as a whole. I should inform the House that we agree with the Lords in respect of amendments Nos. 16 to 24, but we disagree with the amendments offered in lieu. I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentlemen on that, but I will explain our reasons.
	Amendments Nos. 16 to 20 remove the ability of a police superintendent to authorise post-charge questioning about the offence charged. Rather than authorisation by the police, all questioning will need to be authorised by a Crown court judge in England and Wales, a sheriff in Scotland and a district judge in Northern Ireland.
	The amendments limit the period for which post-charge questioning can be allowed to a maximum of 48 hours before further authorisation must be sought. This 48-hour period would run continuously from the commencement of questioning and would include time for meal breaks, sleep, and consultation with legal advisers. Questioning would be authorised only if the judge deemed that it would not interfere unduly with the preparation of the defendant's defence to the charge or any other criminal charge that he may be facing; in effect, this would prevent questioning close to, or during, a defendant's trial.
	The amendments allow the judge to authorise questioning for an offence not specified in terrorism legislation if it appears that the offence the person has been charged with has a connection to terrorism. For example, a judge could authorise post-charge questioning for the offence of murder if it appeared to them that it was connected to terrorism. The amendments also allow the judge authorising questioning to impose such conditions on the questioning—the location or length of the questioning, for example—as he or she deems necessary in the interests of justice. They do not, however, specify that the judge could determine the scope of questioning, unlike the Opposition's amendments.
	We had considered including in the Bill a provision that allowed the judge to impose conditions on the matters in respect of which questioning was authorised. However, we received representations and, following further consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, the police and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland, we do not believe that it would be appropriate to specify that a judge could determine the scope of police questions. We believe that to do so would, in effect, lead to the judge drawing up acceptable questions that could be put to the suspect from which the police would not be able to deviate. This has obvious practical problems. For example, what happens if the suspect mentions an alibi during questioning on which the police do not have authorisation to question? Do we really want the police to have to stop the interview and apply for further authorisation from a judge simply to ask further questions about that alibi?
	We must remember that the judge may exclude any evidence unfairly obtained by means of making a ruling under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. In addition, there are safeguards that apply to the suspect during questioning; for example, they have the right to legal representation.
	The roles of the police and the judiciary are clear and well understood in our criminal law. Allowing interference in the scope of an investigation by limiting the questions that can be asked would be a blurring and complication of those well defined roles.
	Amendment Nos. 22 to 24 remove the order-making power that allowed the Secretary of State to disapply the compulsory requirement for all post-charge questioning to be video recorded with sound. Under these provisions, all post-charge questioning will be video recorded with sound in all parts of the UK. With those brief remarks, I ask the House not to accept amendment (a).

Huw Irranca-Davies: The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable intervention. When I deal with the immediate issue before us, I will refer to the need to ensure that the timeliness of any decisions works for the balance of the environment and the economic considerations.
	In terms of the assessment, the requirements of the habitat regulations will ensure that the adverse effects will be identified and mitigating measures explored. The current position is that the new ferries are undergoing sea trials under the management of the Lymington harbour commissioners. This work is primarily aimed at determining safe navigation and speeds, but valuable environmental information will also be gathered. It is hoped that the appropriate assessment will be concluded before Christmas. I am not in a position to give any guarantee on that, but I am watching the situation very closely. It is important to ensure that the assessment is sufficiently rigorous.
	I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want me to record the valuable input of the Lymington River Association. Although opposed to the introduction of the larger ferries, it has, to be fair, entered into a constructive dialogue with Natural England about the scientific issues. Although it has not been possible to include all the science that it has proposed, Natural England has pursued some of its suggestions and is still considering others. I hope that this valuable dialogue will continue in future, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will encourage that. I understand that he has met officials from the statutory agency, Natural England, to go through the issues relating to the appropriate assessment. I sense from this debate that he may still have some reservations about the scope and timeliness of the scientific work, but I hope that this important dialogue will continue.
	Let me turn now to the wider environmental issues to explain some of the background. I will come to the point about timeliness, but it is important to explain why we have got to this position and some of the ways forward. Several regulators have a role to play in a proposal for a new development, including, in this instance, the local authority, the local harbour commissioners and DEFRA's Marine and Fisheries Agency—the MFA. The MFA was asked to license minor improvements to berths in Lymington harbour under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. It was not apparent when the original application for the works was submitted to the MFA that it could be part of a wider process facilitating the introduction of these new ferries. That information came to light only through subsequent discussions between regulators, the applicant and stakeholders. Since then, my Department, alongside the MFA, has continued to work with other Government Departments, the Government office for the south-east and regulators in order to address the issues that this complex case presents within the regulatory regime.
	I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and his constituents for raising wider concerns over the possible effects, including possible traffic increases, the effects on local yachtsmen, and the environmental and economic impacts. However, I note that, as with many issues of this type, there are always at least two sides to every story. I understand that many people at the other end of the ferry route, in Yarmouth, feel that these ferries provide a lifeline for them to the mainland. Many of them rely on the service for access to health services, education and employment. We must also consider the important social and tourism aspects and the economic benefits to Lymington. Of course, the new ferries will comply with all modern safety and operational standards, so we need to ensure that our course of action is the right one.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned the marine Bill. I will not go into great detail on that, but I think he is right to mention it, and we will welcome his support when it is introduced. We are looking forward to that. The Bill will bring in a new planning system allowing for the creation of a much more integrated regime for planning in the coastal zone—that is long overdue. It will also provide for the designation and protection of marine conservation zones. Together with European marine sites, MCZs will contribute to the UK's achieving, first among the nations, an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas. As the hon. Gentleman says, that may not be in time, despite our best wishes, but the marine Bill will have an impact in future.
	I come now to the immediate issue before us. The proposal by Wightlink to introduce new ferries in the near future seems, on my first reflections, to be rather premature in the light of the ongoing assessments, and I would suggest that Wightlink might constructively like to reflect carefully before pursuing this course. Although I am not aware of anything unlawful in this proposal, Wightlink is a harbour authority as well as a commercial company, and although I accept that its existing ferries may no longer meet safety standards, and that it is waiting for a decision on its application for consent to the enabling shoreside works, I urge it to give due consideration to its responsibility for the environment.
	The regulators need to consider carefully the full implications of any such action. There are general duties under the habitats regulations that require Lymington harbour commissioners to have regard to the requirements under the habitats directive when exercising their functions and the commissioners would need urgently to assess the position. Furthermore, it is of particular concern that the company is contemplating the introduction of new ferries on this route before the appropriate assessment under the habitats regulations has been completed. We are not talking about a big overlap of time in this case. Should the assessment, when completed, show that the operation of the new ferries would have an adverse effect on the integrity of the protected site, and that mitigation measures could not be agreed with Wightlink, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the other regulators would need to consider carefully, and as a matter of urgency, any regulatory powers they have or might need to exercise in order to fulfil the UK's obligations under the habitats directive.
	I should point out that my officials have already met the Department for Transport to discuss this case. I will instruct them as a matter of urgency to explore further with that Department and other regulators, including the harbour commissioners, the implications of any such action. I will consider carefully any existing regulatory powers that might need to exercised in order to fulfil the UK's obligations under the habitats directive.
	I will not step over the mark tonight and outline the exact course of action that I am likely to pursue, and I stress the balance between the social and economic needs of the ferry service and its responsibility, as a harbour commissioner, to the environment. After reading the transcript of this debate—the strong and powerful contribution of the hon. Member for New Forest, West, the intervention by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) and my comments—I hope that Wightlink will take its responsibilities seriously, consider the issue in the round and recognise that an appropriate assessment is under way, through which we are rapidly gathering the science to make an appropriate decision. I hope that, on that basis, we can find a way forward and that Wightlink hesitates before acting prematurely and rapidly introducing the larger ferries. I hope it recognises that, although it is a commercial operator, it has wider responsibilities.
	I believe that there is a way forward. The debate has shown the complexity of regulation in the marine environment. I feel strongly that—curiously—the marine Bill is uniquely fitted in Europe to introduce a coherent and integrated regime, which has the buy-in from stakeholders at the earliest opportunity, and can consider such an eventuality in future.
	In the meantime, there is a regulatory framework, and work is under way, in which the hon. Gentleman has not only been involved but pushed along diligently. That is the way we need to proceed. That would be my message to the constituents with whom the hon. Member for New Forest, West has worked, to those who rely in his constituency and that of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight on the important economic link that the ferry constitutes, and to the operator, who has an understandable desire to improve the service. I also ask them to take their responsibilities seriously and work with the agencies and regulators who are currently involved with making the appropriate assessment. We can then determine the further action that might need to be taken.
	I thank the hon. Member for New Forest, West for raising the matter in a timely fashion and for the way in which he did so. I urge him to continue his close involvement with the issue and to keep communicating with the Department directly. I hope he is reassured that I, as a Minister, the Department and my officials are fully engaged in the matter and keeping a close eye on progress. We want to work with Wightlink and agencies in the area to ensure the right outcome, which balances priorities in a beautiful, diverse and environmentally important area of the coast.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at  twenty-nine minutes  past Seven o'clock.